Intellectual property piracy, including software piracy, is a common problem for today's software industry. Intellectual property pirates may cause significant monetary damage by illegally copying movies, computer software, and other content protected by intellectual property laws.
The software industry has relied on so-called “checker software” embedded in software products to monitor unlawful copying activity, ensure authenticity, and maintain proper licensing of the software products. However, intellectual property pirates are increasingly targeting the embedded checker software. Checker software may often be distinguished from product software during reverse engineering. As a result, intellectual property pirates are increasingly turning to reverse engineering of software products to remove the embedded checker software.
Accordingly, there is an ongoing need to improve techniques for thwarting pirate efforts to reverse engineer code to ensure that intellectual properties, including computer software, have better protection.